


Charcoal Feathers

by DeansMichaelSword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Artist!Dean, F/F, Gay crisis, Gen, Secret Admirer, Sexual Identity, artist!Cas, genderbent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeansMichaelSword/pseuds/DeansMichaelSword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Genderbent high school AU featuring art, sort of secret admiration, and a rather quiet gay panic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Caught in the Act

**Author's Note:**

> This one's rough guys.  
> Like sandpaper.  
> But it's cute and it was an idea that was eating at me so I had to play it out.  
> Enjoy

Dee is distractedly drawing again - too bored to pay attention to whatever they’re going over in calc that day. She can do well on quizzes and tests if she puts in the effort but it’s just so _awful_ when you dislike the class work. She sighs and scribbles some more. It starts shaping into something recognizable.

A wing.

She keeps going and shapes a matching one. This is an unsurprising occurrence at this point. Most of her notes for a while back have at least a feather somewhere on them. Sure, she draws other stuff but wings are the most prevalent. No one had taught her. She wasn’t even in an art class. It just sort of began happening.

Movement from all across the room ends her daydream as she notices a shadow over her desk.

“These are excellently formed.” Castiel – a girl who sits next to her – points to a pair near the top of the page. “All of them are proficiently articulated and you are consistent with your measurements.”

Deanna just barely avoids blushing as she stutters over nothing - hemming and hawing - and flusteredly flips to a page without any doodles on it.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your train of thought but your work is really commendable.”

“No, um, it’s uh- it’s fine.” Deanna clears her throat.

“Also we’ve been partnered to quiz each other again.” Sometimes the class would be broken up into groups of two as a method of studying. Castiel was one of the better people she could have been paired with in the class. They‘d been assigned to work together before and taken several classes together - sometimes sitting next to each other or sharing answers. Dee perceived her as less than socially adept but undeniably smart. Cas also happens to be one of the most talented artists her age.

As in, absolute genius taking all art classes possible with a viable career already up and running. She’d directed and designed projects to decorate the school and even the city, and she did commissions regularly.

To be complemented by her on some messy crap she’d done out of boredom is shocking to say the least.

“Let’s, uh, let’s get started.”

 ~*~*~*~

Dee goes home and dumps her backpack by her desk, settling in for a few hours of some calculus and literature.  
The last school-related thing she does that evening is pull out her anatomy notes and textbook. She pulls out blank printer paper for the assigned project but instead of drawing, copying, or tracing the semi-transparent torso intended to exemplify the skeleton of the upper body, when she puts pencil to paper, she freehands a basic head and neck. When she gets to the shoulders on a subconscious impulse she distractedly draws a pair of wings. Sporadically, she inserts details and completes the torso before moving back to the head and doing facial characteristics. When she finishes, she puts down the pencil and evaluates her work.

Her eyes widened in recognition as she realizes that the face on her figure had materialized into Castiel's. She quickly flips the page over and presses her hands onto the paper as if to keep it down and revert it to blankness to erase the beautiful albeit unintentional homage to her classmate.

Needless to say she does not finish her anatomy homework that night and is grateful the next day when the teacher discovers that only two students had finished the assignment and granted the leniency of the first 20 minutes of class to do the drawing. Dee pulls out a piece of paper and goes to work, finishing at record speed. Knowing she has far more than enough time, she nonetheless looks up at the clock to verify her ability to restart the assignment and attempt to improve it. As her gaze falls away from the clock, it catches a glimpse of Castiel - angled in her chair so Dee has a full profile view. The look on her face is one of curiosity - the same one that Dee had unintentionally tried to capture last night. She didn’t realize she had paid so much attention to the other girl that she would know the look so well. It’s only once she sketches the wing outline on a second sheet of paper that she consciously realizes she’d decided to redraw the portrait. She blushes to herself at the thought but quickly finishes the rough image, jumping to detail the face before Castiel changes positions. She thought she saw Castiel shifting but when Dee looks up the girl is frozen, not enough to affect how Dee captures the facial expression - the difference will be unnoticeable on paper but it is the air she has about her, somehow changed from what she was initially projecting when Dee had been prompted to draw the girl.

 

Castiel had drawn a similar portrait of the other girl a few weeks ago after she first noticed Deanna scribbling out wings. She thought that they would suit the blonde’s personality. She'd been drawing her for months now, how could she not? Any artist presented with such a beautiful model would be hard pressed to resist that temptation. Her photographic memory aided in not interrupting her efforts at school in order to capture each flawless pose Deanna unwittingly made. She had never mentioned sketching the girl or even brought up the subject of art in conversation with her. She had never thought there would be cause to. The reasons seemed endless: she isn't one to brag, Deanna doesn't seem the type to be interested in art, and she tells herself - lying through her teeth - that Deanna is simply an unwitting model. Deanna having any interest in art was the furthest idea from her mind, second only to the idea of Deanna ever drawing **her**.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cas notices Deanna’s desk void of the paper she’d been working on and flinches in annoyance and self reproach on having missed glimpsing what the finished work looked like.

 

Dee finishes the sketch just in time apparently because as she put the piece in her bag, Castiel turns to face the front and soon after, the teacher begins to collect the assignment.

 

 ~*~*~*~

Dee goes home and slams the door to her room shut, dropping everything but her backpack which she dives into, scrambling for the picture. She grabs a stack of printer paper and a sharp pencil and gets to work. The image is exactly the one she had wanted to create but she decides to copy it, change it, color it, see how it would look if the hair were put up, if she tilted the wings more, if she didn’t give Castiel earrings. In two hours she makes dozens of versions before deciding on one to color. Before the fear of ruining it can fully set in, she grabs a dark color and traces the outline of the feathers. It takes a full, meticulous hour before she is settled with the detail. She has never done anything like this before - a drawing with effort and intent and energy - and she is amazed that she even could. She sits still for a while. She doesn’t know how long. But when she puts down the paper and looks over her other sketches, she forgets about homework and goes to town experimenting with coloring all but the original sketch.

She gets to bed at 11 knowing that if she stayed up any later she’d be distracted by drawing and redrawing and touching up the art and she is satisfied with what she’d done that night. She’ll get her homework done in the morning.

 

~*~*~*~

Castiel goes to her locker at lunch to get the notebooks for her afternoon classes. Little does she expect to find the piece of paper tucked into her locker - the short end barely sticking out of the bottom, obviously slipped in carefully by someone.

She hesitantly pulls it out - having no one come to mind who would leave a note for her - and is shocked to find that it is the drawing she’d seen Deanna doing in anatomy the day before. Only this one had beautiful, rich color and shading. She had expertly captured the lighting so that there was a shimmer to the fully expanded and well articulated wings that had been folded in the initial sketch. She stood speechless until the warning bell ended her reverie. There wasn't a note or a signature telling her who it was from but she had watched Deanna draw this. There was no one else it could be.

The gift - for that’s what it was - was on her mind all day but she made no comment to Deanna either of the times she was with her that afternoon.

 ~*~*~*~

Deanna is speechless. There, in her locker, is a picture of **herself** with white and tan-gold wings. Attached is a post-it note reading

_Thank you.  
\- Castiel N._

As if there were another Castiel. Dee blushes deeply, ducking her head behind her locker door to hide it and nearly wrinkling the art in her hurry to conceal the flattering portrait. It’s twice as beautiful as the drawing she’d made of Castiel and a forest green background had been done in a color complementary to her unbelievably accurate eye color. The eyes had been done with super-heightened attention to detail as had the rest of her features - were those flecks of gold-brown in her irises? did she really have that many freckles? She blushes harder - _like a friggin sissy_ she thinks to herself - before sneaking a look up and down the hall to make sure no one watches as she puts the paper into her bag.

Deanna was not a blusher.

 

~*~*~*~

Cas is eating alone today. Samandriel is sick at home and Inias is off somewhere making out with her boyfriend. Cas is fine with that. No one pays attention to her or makes fun of her for it and she’s glad for the solitude today. It will give her time to come up with an idea for a piece to replace the space on her wall left by the one she had given to Deanna.  
The one that is currently sliding across to her from the other side of the table.  
She looks up from where she had been concentrating on the abstract pattern of the tabletop to see Deanna avoiding her gaze as the blonde clears her throat and says in a voice which was dark for a girl but natural for Deanna (though not nearly as dark as Cas’s), “Um, you, uh, left this in my locker and I- it’s beautiful it really is but you could sell this for money. And - you do sell your art, don’t you? It looks like you put a lot of effort into it and I can’t, I can’t just take it knowing you could have sold this.”

“I’d rather you kept it. Seeing as I have one from you I think it only fair. Besides I have others like it at home.” Cas glances down at her food to avoid Deanna seeing her blush at the admittance.

“Oh! O-okay.” Dee pulls the paper back towards herself and slowly turns to walk away before she recommits to the conversation.

“Can I ask you a question?” she says as she turns a chair around to sit in it backwards, her arms resting on the back of it. Cas puts down her sandwich to squint her eyes and tilt her head as she responds, “You just did.” Deanna shoots her a look and says, “ _Okay_. Can I ask you a question about the, uh, the picture?” Cas nods, relaxing her face again.

“How did you know it was me?”

Cas responds slowly, “I saw you drawing the sketch for it during anatomy the other day.” Deanna’s blush highlights her freckles as Cas continues, “The finished piece is highly improved from the basic lineart which I was barely able to glimpse. I tried to keep still, I didn’t want to reveal that I saw it and ruin your process. I was disappointed that I didn’t see the finished sketch  but this …” she pulls Dee’s picture of her from her bag, “ was a much nicer surprise than seeing just the sketch ever could have been.” She keeps her eyes glued to her portrait as she continues, “Your wings showed potential and I was flattered that you would choose to draw me. As an artist, it is unusual to be the subject of someone else’s work.”

Both girls just sit for a moment, gazing at the pictures of themselves before suddenly and simultaneously making eye contact and holding it silently. “Thank you,” Dee says just above a whisper while maintaining eye contact. “It was nothing.” That was rude, she reprimands herself mentally, before word-vomiting to accommodate for it, “I mean, you’re welcome, it’s just, that was the first one I did of you, so it’s not very good but I like it and this," she indicates the image in her hand, "was the first one you did of me …” Dee nods, blatantly not thinking about the dozens of other sketches she has on the desk in her room. Castiel continues, “so … I thought it an appropriate reciprocation but like I said, I have more at home.” She pauses, “I could show them to you some time if you’d like.”

“That-that'd be great,” Dee grins at her.

Castiel’s lips twitch in the briefest of smiles, “You could come over to my house any time this week. I’m not doing much this afternoon.”

“Sure, this afternoon works.”

“Dee!” Joe Harvelle calls out from a table across the cafeteria where he sits with the rest of the usual group Deanna hangs out with: two girls (Ashe, a semi-rowdy computer whiz, and Bonny, a regular gothic-rock, tough as nails, southern-belle) and another boy (Charlie who was slightly ostentatious and nerdy, not to mention gay). Kristen Tran - a freshman, _she’s definitely in AP_ Cas thinks to herself - had also joined them today. Castiel notices that Sam (Deanna’s sister) and Gabrielle (Castiel’s cousin) were nowhere to be seen.

Deanna holds up her hand in a ‘one sec’ gesture before turning back to Castiel. “I could give you a ride home if you wanted. You walk, right?” Dee had seen the girl walking after school multiple times as she sped past. Castiel nods in response, silently resenting and thanking Gabrielle for leaving her to her own devices for after school transport. Deanna gets up, putting away the drawing once more and flashing a smile, not bothering to mention the make or model of her car as she walks away. It didn’t matter. Castiel knows which car she drove. Everyone knows Deanna’s Baby. Though a few were more familiar with the back seat than others.

The girl’s sexual prowess was renowned and her attentions were something to worshiped and desired. Everyone wanted to get with her but she wasn’t someone you just hit on like you _were actually_ just looking for a quick fuck or whatever she was willing to offer you - though lord knows that unless you were something special you’d be horribly lucky to get that or less. The last time she was in a committed relationship was probably sophomore year with Louis Braeden for all of three and a half months.

One did not just hit on Deanna Winchester or talk about her objectively either. No, no. Whether you were on the receiving end of her sexual favors or condemning her for them it simply was not brought up by anyone. Bela Talbot was the first, last, and only person to do so. Deanna wasn’t the kind of popular that warranted social attention from people who didn’t interact with her closely (which _was_ the kind of popular that Bela was). This gave her few opportunities to be gossiped about.

Somehow Deanna had found out about said condemnation by Bela and a mere two periods after Bela had first uttered Dee’s name on the topic in the privacy of the girls’ bathroom, Dee had Balthazar - Bela’s boyfriend and pride of the baseball team - undeniably coming in his pants in front of an entire psychology class. When asked why she did it, she implied knowledge of Bela’s discussion of her sex life by simply saying, “Well Bela thought I was good enough at it to mention in conversation. My guess would be because of an inferiority complex” - they were still in psych class but Balthazar had made his exit -  “and dissatisfaction with her own sex life. And if she can’t get him off then someone had to.”

This experience alone was enough to give her an air of invincibility and power. Not to mention how exponentially her desirability was increased. She took it all in stride though because that hadn’t been the point of her demonstration and everyone knew that.

She was like a goddess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, the ending's weird ... just, just ignore it and go to the next chapter


	2. Getting to Know You

Castiel makes her way over to the black, ‘67 Impala which Deanna is leaning up against, casually checking her phone. The blonde looks up and shoots a smile at Castiel, standing upright and making her way to the driver’s door as Castiel parallels her movements on the passenger’s side. Dee turns on the engine, then the radio which she leaves low in order to start a conversation. They’re familiar enough with each other so that neither is concerned with the potential of an awkward atmosphere.

“I thought we’d be waiting on Sammy but apparently she’s going to the library to study with your cousin.”

“Which one?” Castiel could presume but she'd rather be sure.

“Uh, Gabrielle. Heh, I forget how big your family is.” The Novaks are a staple of the community, rather wealthy but unobtrusively so and every person in town knows at least one of them.

“Then we should have the house to ourselves. I must say it’s a nice surprise.” Deanna laughs. “Gabrielle can be obnoxious at times, as I’m sure you know.”

"Lunch with her most days for the past two years has proved that to me."

"One of the reasons I don't eat with her. Though I'm recently wishing I did." Deanna gave her a look that asked for more so she complied, "Samandriel-“

"Who?"

"I suppose you might know her as Alfie. Mr Crowley decided he didn’t want to bother with pronouncing her name and it just … sort of stuck.”

"Oh yeah, I know her."

"Well she's dual enrolled and sick unusually often so I rarely see her. And the other girl I usually eat lunch with, Inias, has taken to eating her boyfriend's tongue most days," she deadpans. Deanna barks out a laugh at that then turns to her momentarily, "You can always join us- the people I sit with, I think you know most of them." Castiel nods. "And if it's Gabrielle you're worried about I'll save a seat for you next to me." She glances again to the passenger's seat and gives a wink at which Cas smiles - very much enjoying the friendly gesture.

"That would be enjoyable." Deanna almost pauses but the conversation flows too easily between them for the hesitation to be noticeable.

"I think you'll really like Joe."

"Yes?"

"Yeah you're both the same kind of hipster-nerdy." Realizing how that could have sounded, Dee turns to look at her quickly to find Castiel grinning - an unusual but pleasant expression for the girl's face.

"Uh, I didn’t - that's not a bad thing."

"I didn't think it was," Cas responds with a more reserved but still genuine smile. At this point though, Metallica's “Seek and Destroy” came on at which Dee exclaims "Yeah!" before turning up the volume and humming along vigorously between asking for directions. Dee had known the general area and even which upscale neighborhood that the stately home was in but asks for help navigating the private roads within said neighborhood.

 ~*~*~*~

Cas carefully shuts the door of the car and Deanna follows her up to her house. Stepping into a foyer the size of a garage - yeah, that was how rich they were - Deanna gives off a low whistle.

“Damn, Cas,” she drops the nickname as if it had passed her lips a thousand times, “if I’d known we were visiting the queen, I would have brought a gift!”

Cas didn’t miss a beat, “Well that would have been awkward, seeing as Michael’s out of the house and therefore wouldn’t be able to receive your gift. Though, Luke probably would have accepted it, he’s out as well and I’d rank him more as a princess than a queen.”

Dee cracks up at that. Michael is the oldest of Castiel’s siblings and everyone knows him. He was a senior the year that Deanna and Cas were freshmen. Dee knew how hot he was and that he had a promising career in whatever the hell he decided he wanted to do. Luke is the second oldest, just a year behind Michael, having graduated two years ago. Dee knows less about him - he stayed out of the public eye but he had a knack for parties and Dee had scored at a few of the ones he’d hosted but they were never held at the Novak estate. She hadn’t been to one of them in over a year.

 

Castiel doesn’t bother removing her coat. She’s too excited to share her art but attempting to be reserved about it and she hadn’t forgotten to be polite.

“Want anything to drink, Dee?” another nickname falling casually between them with a bout of confidence from Cas, “We might have some snacks in the pantry.”

“I’m good.” She had followed Cas into the kitchen. Cas shrugs and motions for the other girl to follow her up the stairs.

“I’m lucky, I got the room at the end of the hall. You should hear Gab whine about Luke’s midnight pantry raids or being woken up about Michael coming home at 2am on a conference call speaking loudly in a foreign language. Neither of us know who he’s calling or why.”

“Two words: Secret. Agent.”

Cas laughs at that, “Michael is more of a tattle-tale than inclined towards espionage. Not to mention that he was the worst of us at hide and seek.” She pauses at the door to her bedroom to turn and watch her friend - friend? yes - laughing.

 _God, we’re close_ Dee thinks to herself. She smiles and nods her head at the door as if to distract from the suddenly charged proximity.

 

Cas turns absently back to the action of entering her room.

Dee drops her bag next to Cas’s at the end of a couch against the wall. Dee suddenly realizes that she had been left alone in the room. She takes a moment to look at the walls adorned in artwork. Everything looks like it belongs in a museum. The ones above her desk obviously had more personal motive and were less polished but more meaningful, more beautiful. She walks over for a closer look.

 

“Most of these are of my family but some are friends.”

“Jesus Cas!” Dee had jumped at the girl’s stealthy approach.

“Apologies.” Cas goes to the couch and sits down, pulling up a box of file folders. Dee gives a last glance at the wall, wondering about the gap before joining the brunette.

“I’m not sure what you’re interested in seeing but these are some of my favorites from this past year.” Cas holds out a small stack of papers and Dee carefully wipes her hands on her pants before taking it. There is variety to the assortment. Dee sees faces, hands, ominous forests, flowers, lions, apes, and she pauses when she comes to a sheet that acted as a window into a beehive that filles the page.

Cas sits, simply observing the blonde’s reactions. She is absorbed in every expression that flits across that face which she had depicted so many times before. Dee wasn’t quite singled out. Cas had drawn plenty of her other classmates under a multitude of circumstances. Deanna’s face had just shown up far more often than anyone else’s.

Cas notices the pause at the picture of the hive and remarks, “That one was part of a series of similar images. I have them in another box.”

“I’d love to see them. If you don’t mind getting them out, that is.” Dee’s expression is one of pure absorption. Cas is gone for barely a moment before reappearing with a portfolio.

“These were going to be sent off to a museum in the next county over. When I decided I liked them too much to let them go the curator agreed that it could be part of the digital display and had them scanned so I could keep the originals. I was glad I hadn’t been asked to sign a contract. Likely because I had volunteered to do the series. They did, however send me a check a few months later.” She paused for a breath, unused to delving this much information to someone without interruption. “My favorite part of the series was studying the bees. I went to a bee farm and then they took me to a wild hive which was where I got the better internal views. The way they interacted … the whole chain of succession, all of the coordinated movements, the initiative and design of the hive; it was all so fascinating. I had to keep the pictures because they are a very physical connection to that understanding.”   
Dee is still soaking up her every word - eyes flitting from Cas’s mouth to the pictures in her own hands.

 

Each image is more detailed and gives a closer views of the bees than the last. Her right hand hovers over the wings of a bee that fills half of the page. Dee longs to trace it and feel the silkiness of the transparent appendages adorned with flecks of pollen.

“How did you get that … rainbow-y color?” Dee asks.

“The iridescence?” Cas pauses, narrowing her eyes at the image. “It’s hard to explain,” she gets up and walks to her desk continuing, “but I could show you.” Dee perks up at that and stands to join her at the desk, but Cas drops to the floor in the center of the room, opening her sketchbook and a box of colored pencils.

After pouring out the box and flipping to a blank page she stretches out on her stomach. Her coat fans out around her and hangs loosely over her shoulders and ass. Dee mimics and sidles up to her to watch carefully. Both are absorbed in quiet concentration. Cas tries to verbalize her actions when she can. Dee asks questions and patiently awaits answers as she memorizes the motions. Cas fills a page or becomes satisfied with the focus of the image and flips to a new one. Each time, she generically explains to Dee a new technique she would show her in the next image. They’re mostly different angles of transparent bug wings but then Dee asks to see how she does it with feathers. Cas shows her with several color combinations on one page. She gets an idea and jumps up with a cat-like grace, putting Dee off-balance a little (the girls had been leaning into each other unnoticeably until now) and darts into the closet where she must have gone earlier to get the box of file-folders.

She returns holding the skeleton remains of a notebook, handing it to Dee.

“If I’m going to give you an art lesson it would be best if you had the ability to practice.” Cas lays down again, “You can have it. I always hate to reach the end of a sketchbook so I have  dozens of these. All with barely any paper left. I’ll be glad to get rid of it.”

Dee just beams in gratitude and sidles up to Cas again.

Then conversation fills up the no-longer-existent and now completely metaphorical space between them. Dee asks what kind of music Cas likes and is shocked at her lack of musical taste: not a single “qualifying” classic rock band (“Gab likes KISS … and Asia … and Queen.” “Yeah, Sammy likes those too but they don’t count! Not in the way I’m talking about.”) is on the brunette’s incredibly short list (“How do you not have a favorite band?” “I listen to what’s on the radio if I like it and I change it or turn it off if I don’t.” “Dude, we have to fix that.”).

She asks about Cas’s family and after a few anecdotes, neither of them can comprehend how Cas puts up with them. Dee of course follows up by gushing about Sam. Cas refrains from mentioning that she’s heard almost the same things from Gab on a daily basis. Mostly because she likes hearing Dee talk and seeing the way her eyes light up when she mentions her younger sister.

When Dee’s stomach starts growling, Cas leaves her drawing to go get them snacks. Which leads to them talking about their favorite flavors of chips and pop tarts and (as it was bound to), it of course ends in pie. And Dee gives a fifteen minute, one-sided debate on the merits of cherry over apple pie. Cas notes a light in the blonde’s eyes similar to the one she got when talking about Sammy. It really is a lovely thing to behold and when she absent-mindedly starts sketching the look out on her paper, she can’t even bring herself to attempt to shield it from her friend. Dee blushes and stumbles her way around a grin through her closing argument once she notices.

Dee asks Cas what her friends are like. Cas gladly describes their grade’s most adorable student and her proclivity for doing everything perfectly while being unaware.

Dee can’t believe how much Cas is making her laugh. She hopes the brunette won’t look at the clock and realize how late it is. She wants to stay like this – drawing and talking, lying on her stomach on the carpet of her new best friend’s house – forever.

Little does she know that Cas holds precisely the same sentiments. As Dee scribbles furiously at her paper in an attempt to preserve the moment with pure effort, Cas rests her face in her palm and gazes at the blonde’s beautiful features. She’s getting ready to start counting freckles when Dee glances up, then back to her paper, then up again, holding her gaze.

They stay locked like that for who knows how long until Dee whispers – to accommodate the unnaturally close proximity, “Dude, you can’t stare at people like that. It’s creepy.” But her entire statement seems to lose all meaning or force when she glances at Cas’s lips in the middle of it and then leans forward the smallest fraction – seemingly without knowing.

Cas stares at her wide-eyed and blinks once, takes a breath to say something, but then Dee’s closing the centimeters left between their lips and they’re kissing.

 

It‘s all gentle pressing of soft lips for a few short moments, then Cas brings her hand up to Dean’s cheek. Dee realizes they’re lying on the floor still and reaches out to cup Cas’s face and guide them both into a sitting position.

The gentle press of their lips gives way to delicious pressure as Dee grips the lapels of Cas’s coat and pulls the other girl towards herself. Dee feels hands on the back of her upper arm as Cas leans in. Dee is startled to feel a set of breasts bump up against her own.

 _Gay crisis later, champ_ she thinks to herself, _making out is making out and_ damn _this nerdy art girl is fan-friggin-tastic at it._ Cas is gently inching her hands along Dee’s leather-clad triceps and giving Dee goose-bumps as legs brush then fail to separate.

This sort of kissing is heady and Dee loves it. They’re going so damn _slowly_ but for once she doesn’t mind. She’s just drinking it in as it happens, stealing breaths between short kisses before capturing and holding Cas’s mouth until they can barely breathe once more.

She lifts her eyelids slightly, leaving them mostly hooded, to sneak a glance at Cas who has melted completely into the kissing. It gives her the confidence to slip her tongue along the brunette’s lips. Cas yields, slowly parting them, and Dee enters in a similarly gentle fashion.

Her tongue sweeps over teeth and runs along the roof of her mouth, making Cas shiver.

 

“Oh my **_God_**! Cassie! You wouldn’t believe -! Well, well, well, looks like we both got a piece of Winchester ass tonight.” Cas and Dee break apart at the sudden interruption of Gabrielle bursting into Cas’s bedroom.

“Winchester a-? What the hell did you do to my sister?!” Dee jumps up indignantly.

“Relax, relax just some friendly tongue-action, which it would be incredibly hypocritical of you to judge me for _Dean-o_.”

Deanna clenches her fists, “Fuck off _Gabby_.” She uses a nickname as unpopular with her antagonizer (who preferred “Gab”) as “Dean-o” was with herself.

“Speaking of fucking off,” Cas blushes, thinking that her cousin is about to continue with a lewd remark about walking in on them the way she had, “shouldn’t you be leaving about now? Samsquatch said something about an 11pm curfew and it's 10:45 now."

"Shit! Dad's going to kill me!" She turns to Cas and reaches for the pen tucked invisibly into her bun, holding it and her palm out for the other girl, "Number?" Cas quickly jots it down and hands Dee's new sketchbook to her as the blonde snatches up her bag from the floor and offers a hopeful smile while confidently telling Cas, "I'll text you."

Cas goes about tucking away her art and when the impala can be heard driving off, Gabrielle begins a slow clap.

"Congratulations, you have scored yourself the third hottest girl in school - after myself and her sister of course. Though I must say I never really pegged you for her type."

"I never thought Sam would have to lower her standards to your level."

"Oh, harsh Cassie! You'll never catch a man with a tongue like that."

"I don't intend to."

Gab sniggers at that before slumping beside her cousin on the worn sofa.

"But really, Dee is probably the most heterosexual person I know. How on earth-" the front door slams just then. Castiel, wanting to avoid the conversation for as long as possible as she still lacks answers to her own questions interjects, "Michael's home, can we please discuss this later? I'd rather him not barge in on this." Their extremely religious oldest sibling isn't someone they can exactly peg as a homophobe but then again, who could say for sure since no one had yet been brave enough to bring it up?

 

 


	3. The Gay Crisis

Cas is reluctant to brush her teeth that night. She wants to pretend to be able to taste Dee for as long as possible and the harsh mint will wash that away.

 ~*~*~*~

Dee had texted as she promised she would. They talk about homework as Dee finishes up her Spanish and then about art as Cas looks for her good pencils. Cas reluctantly ends the conversation when she finds them, begging off as the line art for a commission is due on Saturday.

Once she has a rough outline, she cleans up her room and tucks herself in. She doesn’t fall asleep.

 ~*~*~*~

When Dee lies down for the night she doesn’t even climb under the covers. She just lies there with one arm tucked under her head, the other resting on her stomach. She closes her eyes for the sole purpose of opening the floodgates to her gay crisis.

 

That was so gay. So very, very gay. Well no, if it had been gay there would have at least been dick involved. This is worse. It’s something she could get invested in. Something she already _is_ invested in: offering to save her a seat at lunch, exchanging numbers, keeping in contact for over twelve hours total in a single day.

 

Gab had assessed her well. She is very, _very_ heterosexual. Or she always had been. Not a day went by without a dick joke and rarely a week passed where she hadn’t seen one, be it porn or reality.

 

Then again, she’d always been able to appreciate a well-formed body regardless of gender. Thinking back on it, she had in the past very much enjoyed even the all-girls pool parties and sleepovers she’d attended for the view they provided in what could be considered a marginally less than heterosexual way. In that respect she might say she was second only to Gab, who everyone knew hooked up with whomever she wanted (was it pansexual? yeah, pansexual) and was occasionally guilty of objectifying without discrimination.

 

She can’t handle this shit right now. She gets back up and wanders down the hall to Sam’s room. Lightly knocking on the open door, she finds her sister still awake, reading of course.

“Hey, Sammy, got a sec?”

“Sure, Dee.” She puts down her book and Dee shuffles across the floor to sit on the edge of the bed.

Dee takes a breath, stops herself from saying something, then blazes on ahead with, “You like girls, yeah?”

Sam blushes – _Sam_ is a blusher – and stammers, “Y-yeah …? But, I mean, I like guys too …” She gives Dee a calculating look. Dee nods and slightly purses her lips, “Mmkay. So, are you, uh, pansexual like Gab?”

This time, Dee knows Sam’s only blushing at the mention of the Novak because they’d been making out and she doesn’t know that Dee knows.

“I, uh, haven’t really thought about labeling it. But you could call it that. Or maybe bisexual? I’m not sure. I guess I’d go with pansexual though.”

Dee nods, silent for a moment, “How… how did you know?”

Sam perks up, catching onto what’s happening, no longer concerned that this is just a drawn out way of Dee confronting her about Gab.

“I mean, I just started having crushes on more than boys. I didn’t really think about it until the girls around me were only talking about boys. It was weird for a while but then I met Gab and then I met Charlie and I felt more comfortable about it. It just wasn’t as big of a deal.”

 _How_ , is all Dee can think, _how is it not such a big deal?_ But she doesn’t voice this, just nods again.

Sam can see that Dee’s not resigned or reassured or calm and that she looks tense, so she keeps talking, “If it had been a big deal, I guess I would have come to you about it,” that gets Dee’s attention, “and I mean it would have been fine if I’d felt weird about it because it’s a whole new way to feel about everything. I’m just glad that I got to where I am now. That I’m happy with who I am and the people I like.”

Dee smiled, “Cool. Really glad for ya Sammy.” Sam smiled back, “Don’t call me Sammy!”

“Whatever,” Dee called over her shoulder on the way back to her room.

 

 

~*~*~*~

 

She texts Cas at 2am.

 

You awake? **\- Dee**

I am **\- Cas**

Good. I can’t sleep. **\- Dee**

 

Castiel notices the little dots signaling that the other person is typing appear then disappear then reappear at least five distinct times within the span of a few minutes.

 

Do u maybe want 2 go grab ice-cream after school tomorrow? **\- Dee**

I would love to **\- Cas**

 

Dee smiles before noticing the typing-dots pop up again and fearing a “but,” as Dee herself - by no means through her gay crisis - was experiencing huge amounts of self doubt.

 

I have to be at an art class by 5. I can remain with you until I have to leave for that. **\- Cas**

I could give you a ride **\- Dee**

 

Dee cringes at how quickly she replies.   
Cas purses her lips to hold back an enormous smile.

 

Wonderful **\- Cas**

:) **\- Dee**

Night Cas **\- Dee**

Goodnight Dee **\- Cas**

 

It takes all of two minutes for them to fall asleep after that.

 

 

 


End file.
